Phish – Worcester, MA 6/8/2012 – I Feel The Feeling I Forgot

My brother-in-law Dan and I took the train from Framingham, MA out to the old Worcester Centrum, now re-christened the “DCU Center.” Arriving about 2 hours before show time, we walked around the venue in search of a bar, and ended up landing two prime stool seats at some solid bar/restaurant on the back side of the arena. Fueled up, we walked down the makeshift ShakeDown street which was about as nuts as I’ve seen.

I don’t actually do any drugs – not my thing – but I didn’t think I was a prude in terms of the stuff I’d seen – until this Worcester Wook Orgy of Altered States. It was a free for all – there were too many nitrous tanks to count: on full blast pounding out balloons as fast as physics would allow. Salesmen and women hawked their wares loudly: Molly. Ketamine. Pills. Weed. Shrooms. Coke. One guy was practically screaming SHROOMS SHROOMS SHROOMS SHROOMS COKE COKE COKE COKE at me. No thanks. We bought 2 Magic Hat #9s from a wook with a cooler and continued to take in the scene. I have no doubt that Trey’s Theme From the Bottom lyric is about browsing the pre-show lot scene:

So I ask you why if I’m swimming by, Don’t you see anything you’d like to try?

The ground was littered with spent nitrous balloons. Or maybe someone was just having a birthday party:

Inside the DCU Center, we found our seats about 3 minutes before the lights went out and band ripped into Free. The line “I feel the feeling I forgot,” resonated, and Kill Devil Falls was up next, where “Who knew a day would turn into a week,” and “This time will be different until I do it again,” repeated themselves in my head. Roses are Free followed, and got the crowd into a frenzy, allowing me to again tell the story of when Dirty Dave and I went to a Ween party at La Quinta Inn in NYC.

This Phish show was perhaps the most “constant” set list I have ever seen live from them, in the sense that there was no ebb at all – until they relented with Velvet Sea late in the second set. Up until then, it was non-stop awesomeness. Pauly has the full setlist:

Bathtub Gin isn’t my favorite Phish anthem, but it was a searing close to a tremendous first set. At setbreak, I managed to go to the bathroom and get beers, returning to my seat just as the lights went down – the bathroom situation at DCU was a total clusterfuck. Just massively under-supplied.

Dan and I lit up cigars as the lights went down and Down With Disease blasted off. The girl in front of my had what I found to be the funniest reaction of sarcastic unawareness that I may have ever seen: she was turning sideways to do a key bump of coke from her purse, and eyed our cigars – rolling her eyes at us and chiding, “Cigars? Really?”

“Says the girl doing key bumps from her purse!” I replied, laughing.

I’ve been joking about how our new foster dog, Benny, makes this tremendous snorting sound when he’s sniffing around – he snorts like a truffle-sniffing-pig. Well Key Bump Girl put Benny to shame with her snort-ability: I thought she was going to inhale her whole car key.

Mike’s Groove was relentless, as usual, and Pauly terrified me by predicting Character Zero via text. “Are you in the future?” I asked him, in awe. Never bet on Phish songs with Dr. Pauly!

Suzy closed the show in typical frenzied fashion, although I was sure that Oh-Kee-Pah was going to lead into Antelope instead.

We walked the 1/4 mile back to the train station, and boarded the last train home 20 minutes later. On my way off the train, as I staggered out of a semi-coma, I looked at a kid by the door and joked sarcastically, “I feel AWESOME.” He just laughed, in knowing appreciation.

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